Battle Of Shiloh

This Sunday past Murdock, his son and I, traveled down to the War Dungeon where another Brigade Fire and Fury battle was being hosted by Nate and McLean.

The photo above taken from the south western approach looking down Purdy road towards Shiloh church shows how close the Confederate and Union troops start to each other.

North of the hornets' nest and advancing Confederate army Union troops enjoy a relaxing morning puttering around their tents:

Sherman's troops stationed around Shiloh church are amongst the first to discover the impending attack:

As are Peabody's brigade under Prentiss; they are the first to be pushed from their positions- their Commander killed in battle- falling back in spectacular fashion to the sunken road:

 Confederate troops, following up  hit the peach orchard and the outer border of the hornet's nest: 

With their comrades fleeing towards their encampments the other Union troops eventually realise that there is a battle in progress:

As Union reinforcements start to arrive, marching up both Corinth roads, Peabody's brigade (after offering very light resistance while ensconced in a good defensive position) again flee! In the photo below, Prentiss attempts to regroup them at the encampment while another brigade prepares to advance into the woods in an attempt to re-take the eastern end of the sunken road:

In the foreground, more union troops  under Mclernand form up outside their camp while in the distance, Sherman's troops continue to stall the Confederate advance on the Union right:

There the confederates are hampered by 'too many officers, not enough troops' syndrome:

Confederate reinforcements enter the table, headed for the meat grinder that was the hornets' nest:

Their arrival helps secure the sunken road and puts them in a good position for the Union counter attack:

The view from the Confederate left shows them having swept away the last of Sherman's brigades including mortally wounding the great man himself:

Pulling a page from the Confederate hand book, the union commanders decide to feed brigade after brigade into the hornets' nest in an attempt to push the resilient confederates off of the sunken road:

It is at this point we called the game although there were still several more turns to play.  Technically it was a draw but it looked like a confederate victory was very possible. For a complete victory the confederate had to control the sunken road (no Union troops on it) and push to the north-eastern corner of the battle field, essentially corralling union troops against the river. Both sides seem to be playing for a draw as Sherman's efforts on the union right stalled the confederate advance long enough for Union troops to reorganise and reinforcements to get into position. Both sides seemed to be critically hamstrung by dire maneuvre rolls at key times, including a string of them that caused disorder and retiring moves on the union left .

In the end the Union held the western end of the sunken road (but their position there was tenuous at best)  and the confederates held the centre and eastern end (with nearby union troops reeling in disorder):

In a similar vein to our Battle of Gaines Mill the terrain really dictated how the battle would be fought and, indeed, played out in nearly identical fashion to the actual event.

Angry Piper's Terrain Challenge: Part 2

The first piece for The Angry Piper's Terrain Challenge is complete.

The trees were mostly made before hand; the base for the Hornets' Nest was the focus of this part of the challenge:

I glued some thin cork sections down, in two layers; smoothed the transitions with drywall mud before a light sanding and then my patented mix of sanded grout and vinyl tile adhesive was smeared all lover it. Careful to avoid the roads (but I forgot about the Bloody Pond) , I sprinkled ground fir bark on top and pressed it firmly into the grout/adhesive mixture while it was still wet. Once dry a layer of watered down white glue to seal it and then a sprinkling of Woodland Scenics dark foliage for light undergrowth.
 Then some 2mm static grass, followed by brush and bushes to finish it off. This view shows "bloody" pond with the Sunken Road running along side of it:

Wicker field in the north-east corner of the piece:

Looking north, up the Eastern Corinth Road (the intersection with the sunken road just visible in the middle of the picture):

Looking north west along the sunken road, it bends to the right behind the trees, after crossing the Eastern Corinth Road:

I think I may make a couple more snake rail fences to demarcate the boundary between the hornets'  nest/sunken road and Duncan's field. Not entirely necessary though as I have some made up, they are just a little long.

The Angry Piper's Terrain Challenge

The Angry Piper has issued a Terrain Challenge for the month of August. I have taken the bait and will focus on couple of terrain items.

On August 18th we will be convening at The War Dungeon to re-fight the battle of Shiloh from the ACW using our go-to rule set, Brigade Fire and Fury. My contribution to the game will be to construct the area know as 'The Hornets Nest'. In reality it won't occupy that big an area of the table but it is a key feature in which Union troops were able to hold up the Confederate attack. This terrain feature will also contain The Sunken Road (in reality, just a wagon track between fields) which runs along the southern edge of the hornet's nest.

Here is the basic layout on MDF, 19" by 22" at it's widest parts.North -east is at the bottom of the picture:

The square in the lower right is Wicker Field; the sharp indent at the top will border Duncan field; the cork strip running across for left to right is the Eastern Corinth road. In faint pencil along the left hand edge is the sunken road, deviating to the right after it bisects the Eastern Corinth rd..

Of course, we also  need more trees:

As the above work has to be done by the 18th. I am confident I will be able to complete another fairly straight forward terrain piece. In March of 2018 my buddy David and I built a couple of tables to run Pulp Alley games at Trumpeter's Salute in Burnaby, BC (blog here). One of the tables is a city table with a canal running along side it:

The plan was to (eventually) have a railroad piece we can slot into the canal; that will be the second piece I hope to build for The Angry Piper's Terrain Challenge.